Williamsburg
Creative neighborhood anchored by a converted industrial waterfront park and a dense arts and dining scene.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Williamsburg in New York starts with the 284 workers who walked off the Havemeyer sugar refinery's waterfront in 1999, in a strike that ran past six hundred days, the longest in the city's history. It reaches back to the refinery's rise from the 1850s, when it refined more than half the sugar in the country, and traces what its union workforce and their neighborhood looked like at its height. Alongside that story, it follows the artists who moved into the same neighborhood's empty factory lofts through the 1990s, and how the L train's first stop out of Manhattan became their artery into the city.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Dumbo
Cobblestoned waterfront between two landmark bridges, packed with converted industrial lofts.
SoHo
Cast-iron district that went from garment factories to artists' lofts to luxury boutiques.
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Waterfront park on reclaimed industrial piers with sweeping East River and Manhattan skyline views.
Chelsea Market
Converted century-old bakery complex now housing dozens of food vendors, shops, and eateries.
The High Line
Elevated park winding along a disused freight railway, thirty feet above Chelsea's streets.
Brooklyn Heights Promenade
Elevated walkway above a buried expressway, with panoramic views of Manhattan and the harbor.